The present invention relates to a very simple and easy-to-use machine for extracting juice from citrus fruit, particularly oranges.
Various ways for extracting juice from citrus fruit are known. These include the simple manual steps of cutting the fruit and then squeezing the two halves thereof by hand, and the use of very simple manual devices such as the well-known "citrus fruit-squeezers," as well as the use of more complicated machines which perform the fruit-squeezing operation in a more or less automatic manner.
For instance, a machine is known which crushes between two plates a citrus fruit previously cut in half. Besides requiring the fruit to have been cut, such machine requires both the loading of the fruit and the extraction of the residue therefrom to be performed manually; practically speaking it replaces in a complicated way the simple manually operated citrus fruit-squeezer provided with a lever.
Besides, due to the tendency for the holes provided on its lower horizontal plate, on which the two halves of the fruit to be squeezed are placed, to become obstructed, such machine cannot be easily cleaned.
Other per se known machines comprise systems for automatically loading, cutting and subsequently squeezing the fruit.
These machines for feeding, cutting, squeezing and evacuating the residue are considerably elaborate and complicated; moreover, the cleaning of the operating members normally isn't easy and is inadequate.
The range of sizes of the fruits which can be squeezed is normally limited and, finally, the overall size of such machines is always considerable.